Memory Cave

[voidtreckermods]

After the passengers see a glimpse of a life that is not their own they appear in a cave. It is light, a strange moss glowing on the walls and ceiling illuminates the cave nicely and it is large enough for them to pace around in without trouble.

They are not alone. In the cave with them is another voidtrecker. Maybe someone they know well, maybe someone they have only seen in the aisles of the train. But they are together in this cave together.

The cave has no exit, at least not yet. They know that it will, eventually. When the time is right.

But for that time to come, they first must talk...

(OOC: For reference: memories!)

Comments

[nobodys_puppet]

"Then... I do not understand..."

[longforgottenpromise]

He shook his head, before tilting it to the side. "Xion... Have you never..."

He tries to think of the best way to explain. "When you saw our memories just now, what were you thinking? What were you feeling?"

[nobodys_puppet]

"you need a heart to have feelings," she said simply and quietly. "We're still not sure if I have a heart now. Axel thinks I do, and.. maybe I do have one now, but I do not know how to have feelings."

[longforgottenpromise]

Lea had told him this, that she struggled to believe she had feelings. He frowned because, for a moment he had felt as she did.

"In the first memory I saw... The one before we landed here you were hiding, from some students. Why were you hiding?"

[nobodys_puppet]

"They had been attacking me for a while," she said, looking down as she remembered, as she thought about that day. And the ones that had lead up to it.

"I didn't know if I would get in trouble, hurting somebodies. So I avoided them when I could. When I couldn't, I wouldn't fight back. Then Axel found out about it, and he did fight back to protect me. So I worked harder to make sure that he wouldn't know. He's a Somebody now, so I didn't know if he would get into as much trouble as I would." She shrugged. Even so, she had wanted to protect him.

"Then Roxas showed up." A hint of a smile as she looked up, as if she could see her friend there. "Where Axel mostly just scared them off... I knew if the bullies ran into Roxas, and Roxas found out, he'd hurt them. So I avoided them so they wouldn't get hurt and my friends wouldn't be in trouble..."

[longforgottenpromise]

"You wanted to protect your friends." He nodded, "Because they mean a lot to you."

He hated to see people hurt, he had never fought back and indeed he had done anything in his power to not show he was hurting, less those that hurt him were hurt in return. So he can understand.

"Wanting to protect someone... That comes from caring about them. That's a feeling."

[nobodys_puppet]

She shook her head. "Even when none of us had hearts," Even if Axel was right that she had started to grow one early on, "we wanted to protect each other, the three of us. I might have thought at one time that... that I felt something. But I know now that I was wrong. We are best friends, Axel said so. That is why we protected each other and why they both helped me." And why she knew she had to vanish before something bad happened to Roxas because of her.

[longforgottenpromise]

He just blinks at all of that, because surely to want to protect each other they had to feel... something.

He only sort of understands the 'no hearts' thing, it's strange, it doesn't make sense but he knows much of his own world doesn't make sense either.

"Oh."

[nobodys_puppet]

She nodded. She had arguments with Noa at the school about if fear was a feeling, and she was pretty sure she won that one. This was one of the few things she knew was right. Wasn't it?

[longforgottenpromise]

He was silent for a moment. Because he had felt things, in her memory. There had been feelings. But he doesn't want to argue with her. Not about what she does or doesn't feel.

"Um... Have you never been happy? Sad? Scared? Angry?"

[nobodys_puppet]

This again. "Scared isn't a feeling. Even animals can be scared."

[longforgottenpromise]

He tilts his head, "Are you saying animals don't have emotions?"

[nobodys_puppet]

"Animals have emotions....?" She was confused again.

[longforgottenpromise]

"Yes." He nodded, looking at her steadily. "We do."

[nobodys_puppet]

"But how do animals..." Wait. What? "We?" Huh?

[longforgottenpromise]

"I am a kirin." He repeats, "It is a type of animal."

And he had feelings, as did other animals. They might not be the same as human emotions but every creature had feelings.

[nobodys_puppet]

"I... don't know what that is. So you're not a person either?" she asked, surprised. She wasn't the only one?

[longforgottenpromise]

"I'm not human." He agreed, he was a person. As was she. But that's... more complicated then he knows how to explain right now. It's the sort of thing he wants to speak with Lea about, to learn how to explain things to her in a way that won't further confuse or upset her.

"A kirin is a beast, it looks like a horse if you know what one of those are, but it has a horn on its head."

As I face palm.

[nobodys_puppet]

She shook her head, trying to remember if she knew what a horse looked like, but she couldn't recall any images at the moment. "I didn't know you weren't a person either. How were you made?"

[longforgottenpromise]

"I was grown on a tree." He told her simply, "In the middle of my world on a mountain called Mount Hou there is a tree. There are twelve kingdoms and each has a kirin to serve to king or queen, when a kirin dies a new one brows in an egg fruit on that tree."

[nobodys_puppet]

And with that he has just guaranteed she will be confused about eggs, fruits, and trees for the foreseeable.

"And you have no hearts?"

[longforgottenpromise]

He tilted his head, "Do animals not have hearts in your world?"

He is trying to understand, but it is difficult.

[nobodys_puppet]

"I don't know if I've ever seen one..." she said with a shrug.

[longforgottenpromise]

"You've never seen an animal?"

He blinked, looking even more confused. He had guessed from her memories and her words that she lived a very different life. But to not even have seen an animal... There were animals on the train.

[nobodys_puppet]

"How would I know one if I saw it?"